- Classicism of Mies - Student: Oguzhan Atrek St. no.: 4108671 Studio: Explore Lab Arch. mentor: Robert Nottrot Research mentor: Peter Koorstra Tech. mentor: Ype Cuperus Date: 03-04-2015 1 Preface This paper investigates our longing to return to our basic, spiritual needs as human beings. We live in a time where I believe many people live a materialistic and superficial life to have a sense of satisfaction for their existence. I believe this satisfaction should come from learning, developing, and getting conscious of our lives. From this sort of critique towards the society, I became interested in “sacred geometry”, which represents the Universe through shapes, ratios, proportions etc… This paper will explain how my fascination (which is a very big topic be a feasible one year project) got narrowed down into a specific topic, which will undergo a research to answer several questions in order to gather a set of design tools to start the design phase of the project. Having said that, this paper starts with a short introduction from my fascination into a project. 2 Index 1. Introduction; my vision and goal………………………………………………………. 5 2. Philosophy; Ancient Greeks, Aquinas, and Mies van der Rohe…………... 8 3. Classical architecture………………………………………………………………………... 11 3.1 Classicism………………………………………………………………………………………... 12 3.2 Main parts of classical architecture…………………………………………………… 15 3.2.1 Taxis……………………………………………………………………………………... 16 3.2.2 Genera…………………………………………………………………………………... 17 3.2.3 Symmetry……………………………………………………………………………… 18 3.3 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………….. 19 4. Mies van der Rohe…………………………………………………………………………….. 20 4.1 Goal of Mies’ architecture…………………………………………………………………. 21 4.2 Design strength and characteristics…………………………………………………... 22 4.3 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………….. 26 5. Case studies Mies van der Rohe………………………………………………………… 27 5.1 Barcelona Pavilion……………………………………………………………………………. 28 5.2 Farnsworth House……………………………………………………………………………. 30 5.3 860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments……………………………………………… 33 5.4 New National Gallery………………………………………………………………………... 36 5.5 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………….. 39 6. Rules of Temple for dancing souls…………………………………………………….. 40 7. Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………… 42 3 “We used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars. Now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt.” – Matthew McConaughey, Interstellar. 4 1. Introduction; my vision and goal Humans have been always looking for spirituality, seeking for answers about the meaning of life. In ancient civilizations this journey was also reflected in architecture for example in Egypt and China. Constructions that represented the universe using sacred geometry as ornamentation, orientation or shape of the constructions. I believe that past couple of centuries this urge of humans to connect with the cosmos has unfortunately faded drastically in comparison with the ancient worlds. Now it just seems as if we do not even think about the purpose of life let alone constructing buildings that represents our existence and guidance in the cosmos. It seems as if we are strictly bonded to the surface of this planet that we forget that we are a part of the cosmos. It seems as if people see the surface of the planet as reality and forget what is out there. Furthermore, from my observations of daily life and the media, I believe that this is caused by living too superficial and materialistic lives. Every single day media throws information at us about superficial goals such as money, status, looks, competitiveness, greediness etc. These are just a few examples that eventually create all the differences between the people and the negativity on this planet. We must look further then these goals that we have in order to grasp the idea of life and our place in the universe. Once we are able to this, we will have taken a huge leap to becoming more conscious about ourselves and in the development of our spirits. There is a suitable quote of Buddha regarding getting conscious by exploring the universe. "Open your eyes and you will see the beauty of the Universe. Open your mind and you will understand the Universe. Open your heart and the Universe is yours." This quote sums up the ideal way to really liberate ourselves from materialistic possession and superficiality and actually get to know who we really are. The first sentence of the quote says "the beauty of the Universe". What is that beauty? Beauty is something most people claim to be able to recognize but none can define to everyone's satisfaction. Many philosophers and artists have tried to put beauty into words. For example Socrates mentioned to beauty as "If measure and symmetry are absent from any composition in any degree, ruin awaits both ingredients and the composition... Measure and symmetry are beauty and virtue the world over." Another world famous philosopher, Plato, Socrates' student, describes beauty as "The beautiful consists in utility and the power to produce some good. The good, of course, is always beautiful, and the beautiful never lacks proportion." Notice how these philosophers relate beauty to measure, symmetry and proportion. That is why I believe that the next generation philosophers after Plato summed up their teachers thinking well. The quote "Order, symmetry and precision." of Aristotle, student of Plato, gives great insight about the term beauty while at the same time summing up his teachers ideas. Even though the given quotes of these three philosophers can be questioned, due to passing their knowledge to each other and therefore sharing the same ideology, the message is clear. True beauty lies within harmony and order. Coming back to the quote of Buddha and his first sentence of the quote "beauty of the Universe", we can draw the conclusion that the fundamentals of the Universe lie in symmetry, harmony and order. If this is the case, which I 5 believe it is, then mathematical ratios and geometric proportions must come closest to understand the structure of all that exists. Understanding this tells us also about the constructions made by ancient civilizations, where mathematical ratios and proportions were applied and have visible relations with the solar system and celestial bodies. The mathematical ratios and geometric proportions used on these constructions are called Sacred Geometry. Sacred geometry is a way to explain the Universe through geometric and mathematical principles. This information is derived in the ancient civilizations and got passed on by ages. One of the civilizations that made this information understandable for us were the ancient Greeks. Sacred geometry is visible in their architecture, design and most importantly their way of thinking. As a civilization the ancient Greeks were very focused on understanding the “truth (beauty)” in the Universe. They were looking for ways to explain how the Universe works and this resulted greatly in their culture. From their philosophy to mythology, every aspect of the Greeks was in the notion of understanding and expressing the Universe. Looking now at architecture, this urge to express in such a way has faded away. I believe this is closely related to the materialistic society, that people don’t have the need anymore to express the “beauty” (fascination for) of the Universe. Therefore, this project is about reintroducing those humanistic values of the ancient civilizations to connect people with the universe, make them realize the bigger picture of life. However, this topic is too big to comprehend without looking specifically into an aspect of it. In that regard I am going to focus on Greek classical architecture, because what we know now as sacred geometry is closely linked to their philosophy about nature, about beauty, and about the truth. This journey of finding the truth is a known concept in the field of art and architecture. From those old days to modern architects, people saw the power of expressing the truth in their designs. One of our recent historical figures in architecture that was also on this journey is Mies van der Rohe. His journey to find the truth started when he worked for Peter Behrens in the 1920’s. This journey led him eventually to his own interpretation of classical architecture that has been globally recognized and cherished. For this reason I chose to analyze Mies’ work to see to how he translated classical architecture in his time. With this comparisment I was able to translate classical architecture in our time with more ease. 6 Fig. 1. Narrowing down main fascination. Source: own image. To find my own answers and methods of applying classicism in my design, I have to answer a couple of (main) questions. First one being the research question: - What can we learn from Mies van der Rohe regarding his ideas on classicism to apply it in contemporary architecture? The second question however, is about answering the question for my personal fascination, which made me interested in this topic in the first place. Answering this question will make clear why we should use classism in our temporary architecture. - What effect can classical canon have to change this materialistic and superficial society? In order to answer these two questions, several sub questions should be answered first. See the list below: - From what parts does Greek classical architecture exist of? What are their implications? - What is the philosophy behind it? - How did Mies van der Rohe translate classical architecture? - What part(s) of classical architecture did he translate to his time? - How did Mies develop his ideas regarding classicism? Having summed these questions up, let us now start the research by looking into the philosophy of the ancient Greeks and what similarities it has with Mies van der Rohe. 7 2. Philosophy; ancient Greeks, Aquinas and Mies van der Rohe The first step to start this research is to understand the philosophy behind the ancient Greeks about life. Obviously this an immense task just because the amount of work there is about that topic. Having said that, I will focus more on aspects that which I think are comprehendible when related to architecture.